RESIDENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA'S MPUMALANGA PROVINCE URGED TO TEST FOR MALARIA

Last Updated:
2018-01-12

MbOMBELA, SOUTH AFRICA, Jan 12 (NNN-SABC) -- The Department of Health in Mpumalanga Province has called on the people in the province to visit health facilities to test for malaria as close 1,200 cases of malaria have been reported in the province since last month.

Mpumalanga, especially in the Lowveld region of the province, is a malaria -isk area because the high rainfall and humidity there provide favourable breeding conditions for the mosquitoes which carry the disease.

The high movement of people during the recent year-end holidays in malaria-endemic areas is said to be a contributing factor to the spread of the disease to non-malaria areas such as the Highveld region.

The Director for Communicable Diseases and Tuberculosis in the Health Department, Mandla Zwane, said Thursday that health facilities were ready to check people for malaria.

“If they stay at home for a long time with those signs and symptoms, they can get complications and then when they reach the hospital or the clinic only to find that already, some of their vital organs are affected. So, we are saying that people need to make sure they quickly go to the clinic for testing and treatment," Zwane added.

"Our health facilities are ready for any people that would come in terms of testing, in terms of the treatment. We have beefed up all of our facilities treatment so that everybody will be tested and get treatment as soon as possible.”

The department says most of the cases were reported in the Ehlanzeni District, with Bushbuckridge registering close to 600 cases since December. Mbombela, Umjindi, Thaba Chweu and Nkomazi are some of the areas that have also registered cases.
Isolated cases have been reported in the Nkangala and Gert Sibande Districts. -- NNN-SABC